Leah Litman

The Purcell principle is this idea that the court has selectively invoked that suggests courts shouldn't change the rules too close to an election, lest they risk voter confusion and whatnot.

But the advocate for the RNC said, no, no problem, right?

Just like hand out this bad boy at the end of June and upend election rules for an election that's going to happen in November.

No big deal.

And Justice Kavanaugh didn't push back on that.

And the reality is this court has really selectively invoked that principle.

So it has invoked Purcell when courts try to protect voting rights.

Basically, it's always too close to an election to do something that protects voting rights.

but it's never too close to an election to do something that would help Republicans.

They allowed the 11th Circuit to change the voting rules in Florida almost a week before that state's primary.

They have allowed other decisions to go into effect that, again, were likely to benefit Republicans, but not decisions that actually improved multiracial democracy or made it easier to cast a ballot.

So it's hard for me to think that he's actually going to apply that principle in a more even-handed way.

John, you sweet, sweet summer child.

So, yes, I mean, this theory would suggest that many elections over the last 200 years have been conducted in illegal ways.

And, you know, you express surprise at the idea that they would indulge the suggestion that these false claims or false notions of voter fraud could actually alter the election rules when the reality is that.

They've actually embraced that idea before, you know, in a decision from seven years ago about the Voting Rights Act.

Justice Alito writing for all of the Republican appointees said states have an interest in protecting the appearance of.

of legitimacy in an election, even if there's zero actual evidence of fraud.

And that was the same idea that you had, Justices Kavanaugh and Alito, reverting back to a bunch during this argument about absentee ballots.

Well, isn't it fair for the state to basically adopt rules or the federal government to adopt rules in order to combat the appearance of impropriety, even, again, if that's not rooted in reality?